What your favorite products can teach you about innovation strategy
As professionals who study human behavior and are immersed in innovation strategy and new product development, its easy to forget that our own behavior can teach us a lot. Sometimes when the researcher becomes the subject, it reminds us that there are human truths that we cannot out-innovate.
The Mission Field team recently met to discuss our favorite innovations. Not innovations that we have observed or studied, but things that we love and use as busy working parents, caretakers, travelers, entertainers….all of the roles we play when we aren’t being innovation & strategy consultants.
Here are some of our favorites:
MyMochi - fun for the kids without the mess
Karma Water - makes it easier (and yummier) to take a daily probiotic
Tuck-ins - an inside-out s’more - need we say more?
HopTea - an exciting beverage without caffeine or alcohol
Lentil Pasta - happy mom, healthy kids
As we shared our favorite innovations, there were some common themes that emerged:
They make life better. They solve a problem. They make us feel good. They help us overcome a challenge. As innovators we can get so focused on the shiny object and the cool product attributes, that we forget to ask “does this help our customer accomplish something?” If it doesn’t do a job, it won’t get hired (bought).
Our descriptions of them were more about the “why” than the “what.” That is fundamentally what the best innovation addresses - Jobs to Be Done focus on the why behind customer behavior. As the famous quote says “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”
When I buy lentil pasta, I’m not buying tube shaped pasta that is high in protein, I am buying a dinner that makes me feel good because it makes my kids happy and strong without having to compromise my plant-based beliefs. That is what motivates me to purchase, not the fact that it has 2 more grams of protein than the competition.
So if you ever find yourself trying to internalize the innovation theory you are reading about or trying to decide whether you have a good innovation strategy, don’t forget to take off your “professional” hat and put on your “human” hat and reflect on your favorite innovations and why you love them. Will your customers love the innovations in your pipeline? Will they help them accomplish something? If not, its probably time to re-think your strategy to make sure that someday, your innovation will be someone’s favorite.